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Friday, March 29, 2013

The Reese’s Easter Products of 2013!

All that needs to be said are two words: REESTER EGGS!

I believe it was the late Gerald Ford who once said that if one doesn’t enjoy Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, “they’re worse than the god-damned Ayatollah.” Actually, I’m not sure if Gerald Ford -- or anybody else, for that matter -- ever made such a declaration before, but somebody should’ve.

In all my 27.4 years on this planet, I don’t think I have run into any living thing that didn’t like the peanut butter-chocolate cup thingies. Kids, adults, senior citizens, puppies, giraffes; I’m pretty sure that if you lobbed a handful of Reese’s Pieces at one of those giant ass Venus’s Fly Traps that probably don’t exist in the Amazon Basin, they would probably gobble them up like…well, Reese’s Pieces, I suppose.

It being Easter -- one of the biggest chocolate-eating holiday seasons of the year, next to Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving and Armistice Day -- it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that there are a lot of seasonal, limited-time only Reese’s products on store shelves right now. Ultimately, far too many for one grown ass adult to feasibly cover -- if one was to actually plunk down people money on every single permutation of Reese’s Easter product out there, I’m pretty sure you would’ve squandered a small fortune large enough to purchase a moderately used car.

That said, I couldn’t stop myself from highlighting at least a few Reester products. For all of you chocoholics and peanut butt-holes out there, here’s a rundown of some of the season’s more aesthetically interesting Reese’s offerings…

Reese’s Chocolate Eggs!!

These, I suppose, are the most obvious things in the history of anything being obvious. Reese’s pumpkins, Reese’s trees, Reese’s hearts…if you didn’t see these things coming, the only serviceable excuse you can have is that you’re Stevie Wonder.

If you’ve ever enjoyed a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup before (and even if you are deathly allergic to peanuts, you better have), you will know what to expect here; absolute, utter deliciousness, only differently shaped this time around. I’m not sure words in English can adequately describe how great these things taste, so I shan’t squander our time; just note that these things are Reese’s cups, through and through, and that ought to be enough to satiate anybody.

Reese’s White Chocolate Eggs!!

In nature, white elephants are pretty rare. White rhinoceroses, I have heard, are even rarer. But as atypical as those aberrations of zoology are, they don’t have kaka on the elusiveness of these ivory enigmas.

I don’t know if there’s some sort of massive, subterranean hoarding fan base with virtually no online footprint for these things, but apparently, somebody is buying up these things FAST. Literally a DAY after seeing a new shipment of these things being stocked at a local big box mart, they were picked clean from the seasonal candies section. I mean, gone. Long gone, as if the huddled masses leapt upon the display like vultures tearing up a wildebeest carcass. Hell, this package here was literally the last one in the grocery store - - had I waited just a millisecond longer, assuredly, these things would’ve never ended up in my buggy.

I’ve never had a white chocolate Reece’s product before, but after tasting these delectable slices of manna, I am DEFINITELY going to keep my eyes peeled for whatever future white-choco offerings the brand shats off an assembly line from hereon out. After ingesting just one of the candies, I suddenly realized why individuals may feel the need to mass-store these things; as good as the regular peanut butter cup may be, these things are easily TWICE as fantastic as the standard choco-cup. Why these things aren’t listed as Schedule II narcotics is evidence enough that the FDA just ain’t doing shit nowadays…

Reester Bunnies!!

There have been some great portmanteaus over the years, but I think the linguistic car wreck of “Reese’s” and “Easter” may very well be the greatest made-up word anyone has ever dreamed up. Just say it a couple of times: “Reester.” It’s like your tongue is riding a slip-and-slide over your bottom lip and diving tip first into an inflatable pool of IHOP’s boysenberry sauce.

Despite the linguistic thrills the nomenclature gave me, I really can’t say I was too impressed by these “Reester Bunnies,” for one primary reason; they are made out of milk chocolate, which is clearly inferior to the normal, dark chocolate that people can actually eat. Even the creamy, delicious nucleus of peanut buttery protein in the sternums of these things couldn’t mask the fact that the exterior shells tasted like hardened Ovaltine; if there’s something out there grosser than milk chocolate, I don’t want to know about it.

If you are looking for a saving grace with the Reester Bunnies, you can perhaps find such in the skillful “design” of the candies. As you can (kinda’) see here, the chocolate is actually sculpted quite nicely, with lots of detail carved into the treats. Granted, it doesn’t make up for the fact that the item itself tastes like day-old Nesquick, but it might help. Some.

(A Really, Really Big) Reester Egg!!

While Hershey has released “Reester Eggs” in various incarnations and sizes (as we have explored above), I think it’s impossible to talk about this year’s assortment of Easter goods without directly addressing the veritable Big Daddy of vernal equinox-timed Reese’s candies; ladies and gents, meet THE REESTER EGG to rule over all other REESTER EGGS…

This mammoth chunk of peanut butter cup is basically to normal Reester Eggs what the Big Boo in “Super Mario World” was to the little ghost dudes in “Super Mario Bros. 3.” Yeah, we’re dealing with fundamentally the same territory, but bigger. As in, the size of a small dog’s head, with enough weight behind it that, feasibly, it could be used as a bludgeoning tool, if need be.

Now, the photo here is kinda’ misleading, since the entire candy isn’t completely spherical. While the front, sculpted side is three dimensional, it is worth noting that the underbelly is pretty much flat as a pancake. Even so, we are still dealing with a Goliath-sized chocolate delicacy, and the nutritional info on the back of the box is scarier than most Clive Barker movies; just one of these King Kong-sized eggs is close to 1,200 calories…and ingesting just one of these kaiju-choco-bars will give you more than a day’s worth of saturated fats in one mouthful.

Oh, and if you are wondering? I would say that the composition of the product is probably 75 percent PB, and about a quarter chocolate. And also; I really wanted to gross the shit out of you right then, so mission: completed.

For the most part, it’s just some Reese’s ice cream, with extra chunks of Reese’s peanut butter cups and a few ounces of chocolate syrup mixed in. But, it’s for-a-limited-time only, and as a commercial tie-in to this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament, only stocked for 30 days. If I didn’t try this thing before April 01st? Folks, I may not have gotten a chance to try it…ever.

So, uh, it was all right, I reckon. It really tasted identical to the Reese’s ice cream you can waltz into any Kroger and buy right now, but at the same time…well, no, I guess that’s all there is to say about it. And since I spent about three dollars on this Lilliputian serving, I could have just as easily strolled into the nearest Wal-Mart and picked up a full gallon tub for the same price. I’m not saying I got hosed here, but…[insert sound of a hose being turned on, and subsequently making spraying sounds.]

For those of you not in the loop, both chocolate and peanut butter are foods that are notoriously high in saturated fat contents. Over the course of one week, I believe I ingested enough of both foods to insure an ensuing colonoscopy, or at the very least, the inability to move more than three or four feet at a time without requiring a breather for at least until Memorial Day. That said, pretty much everything I tried out that was both Reese’s branded and Easter-themed was pretty good, except for the stuff that wasn’t, which I’ve already talked about.

So, to summarize? Every artery in my body is clogged with choc-o-dust and peanut residue. And also, there area lot of Reese’s products out there for you to try this Easter. Not that the two are interconnected, in any way, shape or form, of course…

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About Your Friendly Neighborhood Jimbo...

Greetings, Intraweb travelers! My name is Jimbo X (an unusual surname, I know...I think it's Greenlandic) and I'm your kindly proprietor of IIIA. You're probably wondering what the intent of this site is, so that makes two of us. I suppose it's an info-dump for all of the stuff that I find fascinating/irksome about American culture and society, so you'll find a nice jumble of high culture snobbery and low culture sleaze here. It's also a place for me to rant, rave and ramble about all sorts of things that matter and don't matter, so prepare yourself for some heavy-handed bloviating about politics and consumption. Well, that, and lots of stuff about video games and junk food. The things that matter the most obviously.